‘Interpreters of Interpreters’

Abstract

We discuss analogies between oracular and grammatical interpretation, as reflected in our Greek and Latin sources from the Classical era to the High Empire. The two hermeneutical professions of µάντις and γραµµατικός both aim at elucidating the thought (διάνοια) involved in the interpretandum. This is a notion quite frequently made at one level or another in ancient literature, as evidenced for example in writings by Plato, Crates of Mallus, Aristarchus, Cicero, Nigidius Figulus, and Sextus Empiricus.